JERUSALEMóWe have heard time and again that Israel
wins every war and loses every peace.

The great powers have limited tolerance for Israeli
success. They have given Israel a few days or a few weeks to work its
military magic, and then demanded a halt. Afterwards, the beaten
parties are given a way out of Israel's trap, and provided face saving
accomplishments in whatever arrangements are settled after the
fighting, and further accomplishments in the implementation of those
agreements.

In 1973, an Egyptian army surrounded by Israel on the
west side of the Suez Canal was allowed to go home, when a period of
bombing would have destroyed its equipment and soldiers. Israel pulled
back from the Canal, and Egypt was allowed to continue occupying a
substantial slice of the Sinai. Israelis are now warned not to visit
Sinai resorts on account of ineffectual Egyptian efforts against
terrorists; and Egyptian commitments to stop arms smuggling to Gaza
have been worthless.

In the summer of 1982, Israel was pressured into
letting Yasser Arafat and his cadres leave Lebanon for Tunis, even
while the IDF was in Beirut working to destroy Arafat and his
fighters. During this intafada foreign governments and international
organizations have demanded that Israel behave humanely and recognize
its agreements with Palestine, even while Palestinian authorities have
done little to prevent violence, or even encouraged it.

Now in the early aftermath of Lebanon II, we are seeing
the latest chapter in this story. We are arguing as to who won
this war, but there are clearer signs that Israel is losing the peace.
Its captive soldiers will spend more time with Hezbollah, if indeed
they are alive. Foreign troops seconded to the United Nations are
beholden to Lebanese control, and the Lebanese army may be subject to
Hezbollah control. Foreign navies that undertook the task of
patrolling the coast of Lebanon to prevent the smuggling of arms
likewise are agreeing to Lebanese demands: that they remain far from
shore, and ask Lebanese permission before challenging any ship they
suspect of carrying arms.

The cease fire agreement involving Israel, Lebanon, and
the United Nations specified details much different: that the captive
soldiers would be released without conditions; that foreign troops
along with the Lebanese army would take the initiative to disarm
Hezbollah and prevent its being rearmed by munitions arriving by land,
air, or sea.

A human rights organ of the United Nations is
investigating what it calls Israel's practice of endangering Lebanese
civilians, while it is not investigating Hezbollah's practice of
targeting Israeli civilians.

Israelis are protesting their government's acquiescence
in these moves. These protests are mixed with other events in a
political arena that is boiling with unrest. Therefore they are likely
to be diluted in whatever effects they have. Along with them are
demands for a more thoroughgoing inquiry into the war than the prime
minister wants; calls for the resignation of the prime minister, the
defense minister, and the head of the IDF; and that the president
resign or at least suspend himself while under police investigations
for serious sexual charges. One doubts that Israel will go to war in
order to reclaim what many of its residents thought it would be
getting from the cease fire agreement.

I used to tell my students one of the cardinal rules
that individuals must learn if they will be involved in government,
politics, or bureaucracy: "Every day you have to eat some
shit."

This applies to governments and countries, as well as
individuals. "Agreements are meant to be broken."
"They are not worth the paper they are written on." I recall
those as American expressions, directed against agreements meant to
settle issues during the Cold War, and to end American involvement in
Vietnam.

Are officials so dumb that they cannot anticipate what
will happen? Or do they recognize that international agreements signed
by weak states are valued at a discount, like the bonds issued by weak
enterprises. Even if discounted, the agreements may be better than the
alternative of further bloodshed. The United States was better off
when it left Vietnam, even if its fig leaf of an agreement crumbled
and the South Vietnam regime went down the tubes. It was a corrupt
regime that did not do its share while receiving American lives and
treasure.

There are several explanations for Israel's losses
after the end of the fighting. The majority of countries are not
inclined to support Israel, and so the United Nations and its organs
interpret every clause in favor of Israel's adversaries, while
demanding that Israel make the gestures of forgiving a lack of perfect
compliance with the written agreement. European governments and the
United States urge or demand Israeli flexibility after the agreements
are signed, perhaps to aid their own efforts to appear "even
handed" between the parties. It is common to view Israel as
strong enough to survive, while hoping that an implementation of the
arrangements that is generous to the Arab side will contribute to
quiet, at least for a while.

It is important to ask if Israel really loses in these
arrangements.

As a result of making concessions to Egypt in 1973,
Israel helped pave the way to its first peace agreement with an Arab
country. And Egypt was the strongest of the Arab countries. Since
then, Egypt has occasionally been nasty, but never violent. The lack
of military threat from Egypt helped Israel greatly in dealing with
Palestinians in Lebanon during 1982; in the West Bank and Gaza since
then; and with Hezbollah this year in Lebanon.

Letting Arafat and the PLO out of the bag in 1982 may
have helped pave the way to Oslo. That was not a successful agreement.
But it did free Israel from the responsibility of providing social and
economic programming for the West Bank and Gaza. Since then the IDF
has gone in and out in response to Palestinian violence, without
having to manage Palestine between those visits. That is not a small
advantage.

It is much too early to assess what is happening as a
result of Lebanon II. We do not know the impacts of IDF activity, much
less the post-war machinations underway. An optimist would say
that the arrangements, even if substantially different from those in
the cease fire agreement, will strengthen a secular Lebanese regime,
and might advance something like peace on Israel's northern border.
Pessimists have a substantial list of complaints. Next time we go to
war, we will have to be more decisive and forceful in using the time
allotted by the international community. If we do not, Israel may go
the way of South Vietnam.

We have eaten several days' portions of shit in the
working out of this cease fire. May we hope that there is a pearl in
the pile?

Sharkansky is an emeritus member of the political science department at Hebrew University in
Jerusalem